This past weekend, the World Wrestling Entertainment came to Singapore and brought along their leaugue of “superstars” and “divas” with them.
I used to be quite a wrestling fanatic back in the golden era of The Rock and Stone Cold. Although now I don’t watch wrestling as much as I used to because the storylines are getting increasingly predictable, I must say I still get kick out once in a while out of the man-trash entertainment it provides .
The WWE don’t come to South-East Asia very often, so when I found out I grabbed hold of the opportunity and book my flights to Singapore for the show.
Premium Tickets to the event cost me SGD$150 but I got a pretty good seat about twenty rows away from the ring.
Don’t be fooled by the word “premium” because they’re actually one level below the SGD$350 “Diamond” seats. It’s funny how ticketing agencies always use bombastic words like “Diamond” or “Gold” or “Premium” to describe their tickets when in reality everything apart from the first few rows are second-class crap seats.
I arrived at Singapore Indoor Stadium about 10 minutes before the official starting time. By then, there were such a huge line of people outside wanting to get in that I ended up missing the start of the first match.
The queue actually went from the front entrance alllllll the way to the other side of the stadium. I was already bouncing impatiently when I heard Chris Masters’ theme music playing, but the line was still moving so slow in a lemming-like fashion.
Props to the Singaporeans for being so orderly. You won’t get something like this back home for sure.
Everyone would be all pushing one another like barbarians and the RELA people would be screaming their heads off.
Despite being late, I still stopped by the merchandise counter and got myself a Summerslam Tour T-shirt (SGD$35) and a Tour booklet (SGD$25) as souvenirs.
I then settled down at my seat at the Premium box to watch my first live WWE match in four years.
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs “The Masterpiece” Chris Masters
Chris Masters is this much younger wrestler going up against Ric Flair, an older veteran who’s been around since the times of Bret Hart and Ricky Steamboat.
Chris Masters getting ready to give Ric Flair “The Masterlock”
Ric Flair is 58 years old! The last time I saw him in Perth, he had only just returned to wrestling and I thought no way is this old man gonna last in the WWE for too long. Who would’ve thought four years later, “The Nature Boy” is still making regular apperances in the ring.
But surely he cannot be called a “BOY” anymore right?
Chris Masters tried to lock Ric Flair with his finishing move, but the old man moved away and instead made Chris Masters tap-out with his famous Figure-4 Leg Lock. The crowd went nuts for that move!
WWE Tag Team Champions Deuce & Domino Vs The Major Brothers
Deuce & Domino came out dressed like James Dean to some horrible 80s love song, which sounded kinda out-of-place on a wrestling program. The Major Brothers were so new that I haven’t even seen them on TV before.
No one was really into this match. Predictably Deuce & Domino won the match since championships never change hand on untelevised events anyway.
After the show was over, we hung around the car park area where the wrestlers were making their exit. Brian Major was nice enough to stop by and autograph my tour program book.
Michelle McCool Vs Victoria
I always thought the name “Michelle McCool” sounded like some sorta new drink from McDonalds.
Anyway, Michelle McCool came out to cheers and wolf whistles from the appreciative audience. She was wearing long black pants and a white sports bra, proudly showing off her body so fine it could make all the fat girls commit suicide three times over.
Victoria, the more ruthless of the two divas, followed next. At one point, each “diva” took turns standing on the turnbuckle to see who could get the most cheers out from the crowd.
Michelle was clearly winning by a large margin, which irritated Victoria to the point where she stomped up to her turnbuckle… but tripped and fell flat to the ground unceremoniously. That got a few chuckles out from the crowd.
Even the referee was terrified by the ladies
The match was quite brutal for a women’s match.
I was actually quite into this match myself, but some of the horny crowd members were chanting “We want puppies!”
I don’t think they meant dogs.
Victoria was womanhandling her opponent at first, but the tide eventually turned and Michelle McCool emerged victorious in the battle of the silicones.
Michelle McCool was another one who entertained the fans backstage after the show.
Elijah Burke Vs Stevie Richards
Next up was a match between ECW wrestlers Elijah Burke and Stevie Richards.
ECW used to be a another brand other than WWE and WCW. The matches in ECW those days were famous for being very violent thanks to the heavy use of weapons like tables and barbwires.
After the WWE bought ECW over, they completely screwed it up by taking away the hardcore matches and left us with stupid matches like Elijah Burke vs Stevie Richards.
Coming up… Elijah eats boots
I didn’t care about this match but I must admit Elijah Burke was pretty funny.
He spent a lot of time trying to get the audience “to shut yo mouth!”
The guy was getting so annoyed by the crowd booing him that he didn’t wanna start the match for a good ten minutes and at one stage threatened to walked out, which made the crowd boo for him EVEN MORE.
Ouch!
Elijah Burke dominated most of the match and not surprisingly, won it by cheating.
Finlay Vs Kane
This was easily the most entertaining match of the entire night.
Irish tough guy Finlay came out to a good crowd reaction, mainly because he was the first big star to come out since Ric Flair.
But when Kane‘s music came out the crowd absolutely blew the roof of the stadium off!
Even from afar, The Big Red Machine looked intimidating with his imposing figure stomping slowly to the ring.
The crowd was firmly behind Kane throughout the match. One guy from the audience even yelled, “Eh BOTAK! Faster chokeslam him lah!”
The match was back and forth, but as Kane was setting up for his finisher, Finlay’s leprechaun Hornswoggle suddenly appeared from under the ring.
Immediately the crowd erupted into cheers! It doesn’t matter that Finlay was supposed to be the bad guy. Everyone can’t help but to cheer for his little midget sidekick.
Hornswoggle distracted the referee enough for Finlay to knock Kane down with his Irish weapon.
But not so fast! Just like his half-brother The Undertaker, Kane sat right up like that didn’t hurt him at all. Finlay and Hornswoggle froze in shock.
Here’s where the funniest moment of the evening happened.
After Kane threw Finlay out the ring, Hornswoggle found himself standing face-to-face with a very angry seven foot monster.
Rather than running away like a scared pussycat, the midget remained in the ring and challenged Kane to a fight.
Even putting his green hat on Kane’s bald little head…
… AND THEN ATTEMPTED TO CHOKESLAM HIM!
If that’s not the funniest scene I’ve seen so far in professional wrestling, I don’t know what is!
Needless to say, he didn’t succeed and Kane swatted him off like housefly.
Kane then showed him how its done by planting a big chokeslam on his boss for the win, much to the crowd’s approval.
There’s a short intermission at this point and I changed into my Summerslam Tour T-shirt. By this the crowd had flooded the merchandise store and bought every single thing they had available.
When we resumed, ECW returned again with…
ECW Champion John Morrison Vs Tommy Dreamer
John Morrison looked great on TV and even better in person
John Morrison got on the mike and introduced himself as “the new face of extreme”. The guy was parading around like a snob, getting heat from the audience.
ECW Original Tommy Dreamer didn’t like that one bit and whacked him senseless, at one point even wearing his opponent’s fur coat and imitating him swaggering around. The crowd loved it!
Sometimes, men put their hands around another man’s crotch real tight
Everyone was rooting for Tommy Dreamer, but John Morrison pulled off some spectacular moves and got the win with his finisher.
I actually got a good 1GB of video from the event of the wrestlers doing some really cool moves but I’m not sure if I had enough time to edit them and post them up.
Chavo Guerrero Vs Rey Mysterio
I kinda feel sorry for Chavo Guerrero. He’s a great guy and never ignore his fans. But within a span of two years, he lost both his uncle Eddie Guerrero and best friend Chris Benoit.
In this match, he’s going up against family friend and former World Champion Rey Mysterio.
Rey Mysterio showed up on the ramp the crowd went absolutely ballistics!
This was actually our first Mysterio match in a very long time. He hasn’t been on TV since suffering from an injury some months ago, but the little Mexican fella looked to be great shape and didn’t seem like he has lost a step in the ring.
Something amusing happened during this match.
Apparently. the technical guys forgot to switch off a glaring spotlight during the match, and that affected all of us sitting in my section because we couldn’t see.
Everyone in my section started a chant to tell the technical crew to turn off the lights. But because we’re in Singapore, instead of chanting in proper English to “turn off the lights”, we shouted in our most Singlish accent ever…
“OFF THE LIGHT! OFF THE LIGHT! OFF THE LIGHT!”
The chant actually got so loud, Chavo Guerrero stopped wrestling for a while to listen, probably wondering what the hell “off the light” meant.
He thought it was some kinda Singaporean swear word! 😛
This was the easily most fast-paced match of the evening and there were a lot of high-flying action everywhere.
When Rey Mysterio finally hit Chavo Guerrero so hard he dangled dazed on the ropes, the crowd (including me) went absolutely bonkers. It was time for his 619 finisher and the returning hero did it beautifully to claim his win.
Batista Vs World Champion The Great Khali
This was supposedly the final match and main event of our night. Coincidentally, it was also the main event of the upcoming WWE Summerslam show.
Muscle man Batista made his presence felt in front of the Singaporean crowd who gave him a thunderous standing ovation.
That guy is built like a TANK. His biceps are bigger than my head and his chest larger than Tara Reid’s.
Kinda strange to see a half-Filipino wrestling an Indian for a WWE main event
Next came the Smackdown World Champion The Great Khali, who is WWE’s giant-sized wrestler from India.
That’s good enough for one member of the audience to yell out “Eh Khali! Murtabak satu!”
Singaporeans, I tell you.
“The Animal” Batista did everything he could to knock Khali off his feet, but the giant didn’t react much except raising his two arms and roar.
When The Great Khali was finally brought down to the mat, Finlay suddenly interfered and attacked Batista, causing the match to end in a disqualification.
MASSIVE boos from the crowd!
Kane then rushed into to the ring and even up the odds. The good guys cleared the ring and the baddies retreated back up the ramp.
This led to Batista issuing a tag-team challenge to The Great Khali and Finlay. He said, “Khali! If you do not accept my challenge. That means you’re a CHICKEN!”
That was when the Singaporean crowd came up with the BEST CHANT of the whole night.
“KHALI CHICKEN! KHALI CHICKEN!”
Only in Singapore, I tell you.
The Great Khali & Finlay Vs Batista & Kane
The match was pretty standard with the good guys having the upperhand, right up to when Hornswoggle made another appearance.
This time round, Kane and Batista picked up the little bastard and and instead, used him as a MIDGET BATTERING RAM.
The crowd was loving this! After they had enough fun, the good guys decided to end the match the old-fashioned way.
First they put away The Great Khali with a massive double chokeslam.
As for Finlay, let’s just say uhh… Batista decided to handle him in his own “special” way.
Hmmm… *sniff* *sniff*
No wonder they said wrestling was homo.
That’s the gayest shit in the history of gay!
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